![]() Find Note (with Menu), Part 2 ❸ Handling Search Terms The last step is to use a Choose from List action to display everything that has been stored in the Queries variable. The final menu item that will let users search for any note is found in the Text action that contains the text ‘□Search for Note Title□,’ which is added to the previously-defined Queries variable using an Add to Variable action. The next step is to take a Set Variable action, which is named Queries, and add the items from the List action to it. ❷ Adding List Items to the Queries Variable The version in the MacStories Shortcuts Archive has three predefined notes (Dialog, GDC, and MacStories), which you can change to the titles of notes you’ve created. Because the actions that flow from each kind of menu option is different depending on which one the user picks, they are handled separately.įor the predefined note titles that will appear in a popup menu, all that’s needed is to add the exact note titles to the List action that you want to appear in the menu. For Find Notes (with Menu) there are two types of list items that need to be handled: the predefined note titles and the ‘□Search for Note Title□’ option. Find Note (with Menu), Part 1įind Note (with Menu) starts with a Scripting action called List, which as the name implies stores a list of items. ![]() The shortcut can also be found in the MacStories Shortcuts Archive. I use that method too, but for my most commonly-used notes, I prefer Find Notes (with Menu) because it takes me straight to the note I want, side-stepping the possibility that I’ll get distracted by something else in my long list of notes along the way.įind Notes (with Menu) originally appeared in Shortcuts 2.2 Brings New Apple Notes Actions, Travel Time Enhancements, where Federico covered it alongside the other shortcut I’ll outline in this installment of Rewind. ![]() Of course, there are other ways to quickly surface frequently-used notes in the Notes app, such as pinning them to the top of a folder of notes. That means you can be very specific, which will return one note or, if you have a series of notes that share common terms in the titles, you can use the term instead of a specific title to display a second menu containing notes with that term.įor example, I don’t have a note called ‘Try’ but I do have a series of notes with names like ‘Apps to Try’ and ‘Music to Try.’ By using ‘Try’ as a menu item in Find Notes (with Menu), I can pull up a secondary menu of notes with that term and pick from them. There’s also a ‘Search for Note Title’ menu option to find a different note.Ī nice touch of the predefined note choices in the menu is that they are searches too. The shortcut, which can be run from the Shortcuts app, from Shortcuts’ widget, or from the Home screen, opens a popup menu of notes to pick from for quick access. The list of notes I access changes frequently, but there is always a core of 5-10 notes I go back to over and over for months at a time, for which Find Notes (with Menu) is perfect. I have a handful of notes that I access over and over throughout the week for things like lists of apps I want to check out, ideas for stories I want to write, media I want to try, and MacStories project plans I share with Federico. I’ll also briefly revisit If and Otherwise actions, a staple of many shortcuts. As I walk through each shortcut, you’ll see how picking from lists works and use a counting script action to tie a shortcut’s behavior to the number of items found. In a future installment, I’ll tackle note creation.Īpple’s Notes app has built-in search, and its sorting is powerful, but with Find Notes (with Menu) and View Recent Notes, you can create a customized system that takes you to your most-used notes faster, regardless of whether you are working in the Notes app.Īside from the utility of the shortcuts themselves, these two shortcuts are also an excellent way to dig into Shortcuts’ scripting actions. That’s why I want to kick off a pair of Shortcuts Rewind installments with two shortcuts to help you locate existing notes. Between pinning and sorting by date modified, my notes are manageable, but often I find myself searching for a bit of information I stored away months ago. That’s a lot, but I know people with many more. Whether you have hundreds of notes and are looking for a way to sift through them, or you want a quick way to create a note or add to an existing one, Shortcuts is a terrific solution.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |